Spectroscope

This can be very useful because the exact amount of each colour can tell astronomers a great deal about the physics of the object. For example, you can measure the temperature of a star from its spectrum, or work out what different elements a star has, just by looking for narrow lines at particular colours.

Spectrographs are highly complex, expensive pieces of equipment that produce a significant amount of the science that is being done today. They consist of a number of mirrors, prisms, filters, lamps and CCD detectors, and produce image data that can be analysed on computers.